What are your thoughts of youngsters having MySpace pages?
My son "had" one. I started him one over a year ago when he was thirteen, that I set up and planned to monitor. He then had me to delete 'that one' because he made one on his own with a friend's help at the library. Nice.
So every other month or so.... I would go on and look at his page. (At least he befriended me, so I could view it.) But to my surprise, during a recent visit... there were some "foul" words being used on some of his 'posters'/jokes he had on his page. I didn't approve of certain things, so I asked him 'calmly' to take them off and I would be happy.
(As most fourteen year old boys would) he got upset and said it was 'his space'. I proceeded to explain to him that as his parent I have a right to monitor his "space" and that I could take action to delete the page if necessary with the 'MySpace' police.
So I gave him another week.
No change on his page.
So with the help of MySpace, I had it deleted.
Was I too harsh? Should I let him have "his space?"
I would love your feedback on this mean mom action. I like to think I am the type of open minded parent that allows some liberties for the kids to enjoy... some privileges and some independence that they wouldn't have otherwise. But then there are times like these when I have "put my foot" down because - I choose my battles and this was one of them.
The page has been deleted by the very cooperative MySpace customer service for a few weeks now... and Jas didn't even notice until more than a month went by. At least now I know it was of no real importance. Although when he realized what I did, he created a new page which I have set to my favorites so that I can monitor what is viewable... and so far he has kept it just as I would allow it, meaning I have no problem with it. But I would still love to get your feedback on just how far you think parents should go when it comes to MySpace. Because I am ready to have MySpace police step in again if need be.... as many times as necessary if he breaks the rules on what I would allow on the page.
Maybe the bigger issue here is the fact he would even want such things I disapprove of on the site to begin with. Why he didn't want to remove the specific "funny" jokes from his earlier page is beyond me. But I am hoping this is a stage.... and that it will be over soon.
TEENAGERS!
What do you think?
Find yourself... keeping it real.
1 comment:
OMG this is such a tough one! I have 3 half-siblings in high school - 2 girls and 1 boy - and only the girls are into myspace. My brother could care less about it.
But these girls - HS! Their language is worse than any sailor I've never heard! But their respective moms don't really get on to them much about it. I think the reason why is because they figure their daughters are coming to them and talking about problems and teenage stuff - and moms probably figure putting the clamp-down on their choice of language on "their space" will make them less likely to come to mom and share anything... it'll kinda put a clamp-down on the open lines of communication they feel lucky to have going with their daughters....
I think its a trade-off. Kids today - its universal - they ALL wanna be gangstas and thugs - they are just CRUDE. But that is their lingo with their online posse... I would let him have his myspace if it means preserving your lines of communication with your son, which is far more important.
On the other hand, my mom always tries to get my sister to clean up her language on myspace and facebook because supposedly college admissions people are watching! And if they don't approve of your online persona - BAM! No more college acceptance letter!
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